Pages

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Dudley - a couple of nice things......

We parked right next to the Library, and on a whim we popped in - memories came flooding back of hours and hours of browsing and discovering new books and music.

Dudley Public Library.Source of the majority of my musical obsessions.

There's obviously Dudley Zoo & Castle to go to as well. Perhaps the regions finest attraction. And thankfully a lot better nowadays than it used to be. It's also a huge architectural landmark - with the entire site littered with examples of Lubetkin's modernist buildings. Crap for the animals they wanted to keep in there, but beautiful as objects.

Dudley as a town also has some beautiful architecture. The library building is just the start of a whole street's worth of beauty. The Museum and Art Gallery, the Town Hall and many of the lovely pubs and buildings are a delight.But for every thing of beauty, there is a monstrous carbuncle. In fact, most of the experiments of the 50s and 60s are slowly decaying and falling into the ground. Masses of brutally ugly concrete shells line the streets, there's a whole underground structure and car park that used to be Sainsburys back in the 70s but is now just a void, used by skaters and tat shops.Even things like the marvelous Town Hall and civic buildings have been extended and modernised by a team of incompetent lemmings rather than extended in sympathy with the original.

Dudley Civic Buildings

Hideous modern redevelopment not pictured

And there's also the peace and tranquility of Priory ruins and park. At least until the darkness falls, after which it becomes a haven for drinking teens and noise.